77

I am looking for a Windows graphical utility for performing HTTP operations.

For example, I want to be able to say things like:

POST to http://example.org/test/service With a POST body: "Data goes here"

Does anyone know a good piece of software for doing this?

user169877
  • 803
  • 1
  • 7
  • 6
  • see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1087185/http-testing-tool-easily-send-post-get-put – nos May 17 '10 at 01:49

10 Answers10

86

I too have been frustrated by the lack of good graphical http clients available for Windows. So over the past couple years I've been developing one myself: I'm Only Resting, "a feature-rich WinForms-based HTTP client." It's open source (Apache License, Version 2.0) with freely available downloads.

It currently has fairly complete coverage of HTTP features except for file uploads, and it provides a very good user interface with great request and response management.

Here's a screenshot:

enter image description here

Stephen Swensen
  • 22,107
  • 9
  • 81
  • 136
  • Well done, this works well! – asgeo1 Sep 10 '13 at 03:44
  • Awesome - exactly what I was looking for. – Erfan Mar 13 '15 at 07:21
  • I wrote a REST client plugin called Requester for Sublime Text, https://github.com/kylebebak/Requester. It's inspired by HTTPie and Postman. It's very powerful and easy to use, and it's cross-platform. If you're not in love with your HTTP client it's definitely worth a try. – kylebebak Aug 17 '17 at 03:57
46

Update: For people that still come across this, Postman is your best bet now: https://www.getpostman.com/apps

RestClient is my favorite. It's Java based. I think it should meet your needs quite nicely. I particularly like the Auth suppport.

https://github.com/wiztools/rest-client

Screen Shot

nategood
  • 11,807
  • 4
  • 36
  • 44
32

Have you looked at Fiddler 2 from Microsoft?

http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/

Allows you to generate most types of request for testing, including POST. It also supports capturing HTTP requests made by other applications and reusing those for testing.

  • 13
    Fiddler isn't a Microsoft tool... – Daniel DiPaolo May 14 '10 at 14:51
  • 22
    Help -> About Fiddler -> Author: Eric Lawrence (ericlaw@microsoft.com) Copyright 2003-2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Just because its not on Microsoft.com doesn't mean its not a Microsoft tool. –  May 14 '10 at 14:53
  • 3
    Just because it's made by someone who works at Microsoft does not make it a Microsoft tool. . . Reflector is another example of a tool made by a Microsoft employee. He even went on to sell it to another company (Red-Gate). – rifferte May 14 '10 at 14:58
  • 4
    It IS a Microsoft tool according to the license agreement. http://www.fiddler2.com/Fiddler/help/license.asp – Sedat Kapanoglu May 14 '10 at 15:08
  • 3
    @rifferte - aside from ssgs point above, why is the Microsoft copyright notice in the about window then? Its a Microsoft tool. –  May 14 '10 at 15:42
  • @rifferte The difference is that Lutz wrote reflector before he went to work for Microsoft. – Darrel Miller May 14 '10 at 17:49
  • OK - I stand correct :) Odd that the copyright on the site is his, yet the one on the tool is MS. . . – rifferte May 14 '10 at 18:54
  • 1
    And now it is purchased by Telerik, and Eric Lawrence is becoming a Telerik employee. – Bjørn Otto Vasbotten Oct 01 '12 at 18:16
  • 1
    I have decided to end this debate by editing the "from Microsoft" out of the answer above. – mydoghasworms Feb 27 '13 at 09:50
  • I'd thank you to leave my post alone - it was fully correct when it was posted. The "debate" ended nearly two full years before you made your edit. –  Feb 28 '13 at 17:03
  • anyone konws why I downloaded baidu browser rather than fiddler via this link? both using IE or Firefox... – aaron Sep 28 '13 at 11:57
  • 7
    Fiddler is now owned and developed by Teleric. – developer747 Feb 26 '15 at 20:18
  • @aaron I suspect it is because you are in China. – Kasey Speakman Jan 19 '17 at 19:07
4

You can use Microsoft's WFetch tool also. This is a good tool for all HTTP operations.

Adi Lester
  • 24,731
  • 12
  • 95
  • 110
Jai Mallesh Babu
  • 325
  • 1
  • 3
  • 11
4

You could try Jsonium tool http://jsonium.org- nice free tool specialized on requests with JSON in bodies and responses

Alexey Sidelnikov
  • 81
  • 1
3

http://www.ieinspector.com/httpanalyzer/

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=B134A806-D50E-4664-8348-DA5C17129210&displaylang=en

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9780/

http://soft-net.net/SendHTTPTool.aspx

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/966/

Pablo
  • 28,133
  • 34
  • 125
  • 215
2

If anybody is still interest Eclipse Labs Rest Client tool is an excellent choice. I'm trying it in Windows in an EXE version and works smoothly.

I've worked also with Rest Client previously and its great too.

Carlos Gavidia-Calderon
  • 7,145
  • 9
  • 34
  • 59
2

Honestly, for simplistic stuff like that I typically whip up a quick HTML form in a local file and load that up in a browser.

Daniel DiPaolo
  • 55,313
  • 14
  • 116
  • 115
  • So Simple! I'm POSTing some base64encoded files to web service. They are long strings. I've managed to crash/lockup most of the GUI clients when pasting in the long strings.By doing as you suggested, this was the best and easiest solution. Thanks! – GisMofx Feb 04 '16 at 03:15
2

I like rest-client a lot for the purposes you described. It's a Java application to test REST-based web services.

Surya Suravarapu
  • 1,539
  • 1
  • 13
  • 12
1

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snmba.restclient

works from Android Tablets & Phones. Flexible enough to try various combinations.

sam
  • 11
  • 1